Submitted manuscripts are assigned an identification number (ID), that is sent to the author per email. The editorial office of the Moscow University Economics Bulletin uses the ID number of the manuscript during all three steps of the consideration process. The steps are as follows:
1. Initial quality check
The editorial office performs an initial quality check on the manuscript to ensure that: (1) the paper is within the Journal's scope, (2) the paper is formatted correctly, it should completely match the author guidelines (3) the information about the authors is uploaded as a separate document, (4) plagiarism check using the Antiplagiat system and open sources.
If the submitted manuscript does not fit the requirements, the contacts the author with the desk-reject decision and provide some remarks on the reason. If the paper was rejected due to wrong/inaccurate formatting or lack of information about the authors document, the authors are encouraged to submit the paper again when they ensure proper formatting (see Author Guidelines).
The Editorial Board assesses the manuscript for its scope. The decision on whether the manuscript matches the scope of the journal can be given without additional explanations and reviewing. An initial quality check is held within 15 days.
Only the manuscripts that fit all basic requirements of the Moscow University Economics Bulletin proceed to the second stage of consideration: peer reviewing.
2. Double-blind peer review procedure
The independent experts or members of the editorial board can become reviewers. Reviewers provide their expert opinion on a voluntary and gratuitous basis.
Reviewing of the manuscripts is carried out by the following provisions:
- The editors invite recognized experts in corresponding areas to evaluate manuscripts. Only a scholar who has published at least one academic article or monograph during the last three years on the research area of the submitted manuscript can become a reviewer.
- The Moscow University Economics Bulletin uses a "double-blind" peer-review approach. This means reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.
- Every manuscript should be evaluated by at least two reviewers.
- It is the editor’s discretion to choose reviewers. The editorial office sends a letter of invitation to a potential reviewer, providing the title and abstract of the manuscript.
- Reviewers get access to the full text of the manuscript after they have confirmed their readiness to perform a review at the personal account at ElPub. To ensure the double-blind review procedure, the file of the manuscript should not contain information about the author or any element of the text that allows identifying the authorship.
- The editorial office asks the reviewers to provide their expert opinion on the manuscript within 4 weeks.
- As a result of the evaluation, the reviewers send their comments and recommendations to the editorial office. They can provide one of the following recommendations: (1) Provisional acceptance (the manuscript is provisionally recommended to accepted); (2) Minor revision (the authors should address the reviewers’ concerns and improve the manuscript, the re-review is not needed); (3) Major revision (the authors should revise to the manuscript in regard with reviewers’ comments, the revised version will be sent back to some or all of the original reviewers); (4) Reject (in case, in the reviewer’s opinion, the manuscript does not correspond to the academic level or the scope of the journal, the quality of work is low, and the manuscript cannot be sufficiently improved).
- Once two reviews are received, the editorial office sends the results of the review round with the anonymized reviews attached.
- The corresponding author should notify the editorial office whether the authors are going to revise the manuscript or prefer to withdraw it.
- The corresponding author should upload the revised manuscript at the personal account at ElPub under the same paper ID (see. slides 16-17 of the ElPub author manual).
- If the reviewers recommend the major revision, the editorial office sends the revised manuscript to the original reviewers who have requested the re-review and asks them to provide their expert opinion within 4 weeks.
- If the reviewers recommend the minor revision, the revised manuscript does not need to be re-reviewed. The editor delivers it to the editorial board for the final decision.
If the manuscript is rejected at the peer review stage the editorial office notifies authors attaching the anonymized reviews.
The editorial office is obliged to provide the reviews on published articles when an expert committee of the Higher Attestation Commission and Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russian Federation. The editorial office shall keep the reviews for 5 years.
3. The editorial board decision
Kindly note that a positive review does not guarantee acceptance. The final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript for publication in the Moscow University Economics Bulletin is made at the editorial board meeting. The decision is based on the reviews as well as the opinions of the editorial board members.
Upon the board's decision on the manuscript, the editorial office notifies the authors. In the case of acceptance, the authors should sign the license agreement and provide it to the editorial office.
